Derby Talk

Derby Talk is a forum for Pinewood Derby, Awana Grand Prix, Kub Kar Rally, Shape N Race Derby, Space Derby, Raingutter Regatta and other similar races where a child and an adult work together to create a race vehicle and a lot of fun and memories

Going to break this up into two parts. Racing results, then....the rest to follow (most fubar scouting event that I've ever attended), lol.

*Timing system refused to work (again this year), so it was tigers/wolves racing together with a run in each lane, the same with bears/webelos. Then run off's of the 3 fastest cars from each group, then the two group winners race race off for the overall title.

*Lane 3 was fastest lane all night

*I was finish line video guy

Tiger Car

Lost the very First round of the event in a close one (to the car that my buddy and his boy built over my house, who got the lucky lane 3 draw [tongue] ).

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4 went well for a 3-1 heat finish.

Race 1 & 2, Den Semi-Finals. My scout went 3-1, along with this car.

Race 1 & 2 Den Finals. Same car that beat us 1st Round, and went 4-0 in heats.

Was an excellent finals, and the difference in the Win was simply 3rd lane runs. Since the other car beat us in the 1st round of heats, that was the tie-breaker, giving him the Win, and ending my Tigers day with a 2nd place in Den, and 3rd Overall. Very cool to lose to our building-buddies though, and my Tiger was thrilled to get one of the 6 Big Trophies on the Table (his first trophy of any kind)! Very proud of my Tiger!

Webelo II Car

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4 Went real well for a 4-0 heat finish. Being the only undefeated bear/webelo car, he got a bye to the finals.

Pack Finals It was very cool for us two Dad's, who have had our own share of Morgan/Richardson races/finals at the Dragstrip, to see our boys with the only two undefeated cars, racing each other in the finals here!

Race 1 It was a nail-biter! We took the W, but knew he would be faster in lane 3. The question was, how much faster??

Race 2 Another nail biter!

As expected, he was faster, and seemed to be, by roughly the same amount that we won by. I take the video and still shots over to the race officials, and they determine the winner, by who had the biggest margin of victory, on their lane 3 run. They determined that my scout had a slight distance advantage, and was awarded 1st Place Overall! (I agree completely with the call btw, as did my buddy and his scout). With that win, my Webelo was in the clouds knowing that he just capped off a 5 year Scouting career, bringing home the 1st Place Overall Pack hardware every year! The round that he had just lost, was his only Pack round loss suffered in those 5 years. Very, very, proud of my son!

Part 2 to come tomorrow....
Involves "inspection officials" that had zero idea what they were doing or how to handle a car (seriously, SM just grabbed the closest adults standing there), about 20 completely unsupervised kids, mulch, sword flags, lack of any structure or authority, stuff thrown on track multiple times during competition, rudest parents I've ever encountered, threats of physical violence (against my wife and me), cuss words, multiple cars of ours busted, including my sons Pack winning (and district qualifying car) intentionally by another kid, and we might be banned from Scouting at all levels.....good times...Stay tuned, lol

Congratulations on the wins. Great Pictures. I nominate you to be the "Go To" guy when racing on that type track. I was very surprised to see the huge differences among the cars. Did some of those cars not reach the Finish Line?

There were only two cars who had issues making it down the track. One was way too heavy behind the rear wheels, and ended up having to be run backwards to compete, the other was built for looks (he got there, just slow). All of the cars in the pics above, made it to the finish line with no issue, the gaps were just that big, lol (42' track). After the 4 rounds of open heats, both group's finals and the overall finals, were two car/head to head heats.

Gtdhw wrote:"inspections officials" that had zero idea what they were doing or how to handle a car (seriously, SM just grabbed the closest adults standing there), about 20 completely unsupervised kids, mulch, sword flags, lack of any structure or authority, stuff thrown on track multiple times during competition, rudest parents I've ever encountered, threats of physical violence (against my wife and me), cuss words, multiple cars of ours busted, including my sons Pack winning (and district qualifying car) intentionally by another kid, and we might be banned from Scouting at all levels.....good times...Stay tuned, lol

Race is scheduled to be held from 6pm-8:30pm, with car registration starting at 5:30pm. In addition to the pwd race, it was decided that it would be a good idea to also hold the Blue & Gold banquet, at the same venue/time. Didn't sound like a good idea to me at all, but they explained it fairly well, and in theory, it was worth shot. If there was an issue with track set-up, it would be good filler to handle parts of the Blue & Gold. People could eat while the race was going on, so that no one would get bored, and all was going to go smooth.

We show up (both Scouts and I), at 4pm, which was the soonest anyone was allowed in, since it was held in an elementary school cafeteria (half) this year. We get to setting up the track, and all goes well. I help, like the last two years, with the putting together of the track with a couple other Dads, the assistant scoutmaster handles the track electronics, and the SM handles the computer/projector/etc.. Now when we put the track up last year, it was mostly working, but only after about an hour of rigging it together with tape & such. But even then, lane 2 did not register a time, or it was a very slow time, which made averaging runs interesting. Nothing was done to it since last year, so it was no surprise when 30 minutes into it (after assembly), the timers weren't communicating, and nothing was working. We decide some cars need ran down the track, so I pull out the three that I built this year, and my fastest from years past, and on the track they go. I freely offered them up, as they had no real purpose race-wise, and I thought it a good time to get all 4 down the track, for side-by-side comparison. The ASM was trying to get the gate to work, while holding a prox-switch down, manipulating a magnet sensor, and watching the gate, all at the same time. The gate releases, the cars race down the track, but no times recorded.....

No idea why it's so grainy, looks great on my phone...

No times, but I got some results. The white full fender car (pine fenders) has the least aggressive #'s, 3WRR and was the slowest. It rode the rail nice, just not as much speed. The purple ladder car was next slowest. It has a 1/2" com and is 3W, but it's the only one to have a "straight" tune, and was bouncing from side to side. The spoon car is my fastest build this year (based on this pass only though and lane 3 was the fast lane). It has 1/2" com, 4 touching RR, and it rode the rail nicely and had the speed. To my surprise though, my old build from our second year, was still faster (3WRR busted tune, lol). That car, while tuning the very first time, I got way too aggressive and busted the left front of the car clean off, wheel, axle & all, lol. Glued it back together, and covered the fix with a couple of pin stripes. We went to the County/Pack race, and the car does this in the finals of the Outlaw race....I know it's not preferred for a car to this when hitting a bad transition, but it set the front end down right before the finish line, and took the W like a boss, lol (made for a cool pic too). After that race, we went to the state museum when the 2 story track was in town, this car hit a bad transition again, and fell to the tile floor on it's first run...from 1 story up . It suffered a decent sized chip out of the rear of the car, but we picked it up, got back in line, tried again, and it set the daily track record, smh (they had just finished a 5 way scout race from local packs, and the record held).

But, back to the race. After the first run, I'm walking back down to the end of the track after taking the cars back up to the start, when I hear "One moment please, ready...", I turn just in time to see two cars go airborne, but stay on track, and the other two (the wooden spoon and the fastest car) take a nose dive from the starting gate height, to the tile floor. Turns out while trying to hold the switch, the magnet, and messing with the gate, the ASM hit the gate release on accident, but his finger was in the way, and the gate pins abruptly stopped at a about a 20 degree angle to the track, acting as a skinny ramp for the car's body. It sounded horrible, and it was for one car, but the fastest car didn't seem to have any "new" damage. The fendered cars made it down track with no issue, just little straight jumps, but stayed course.

Sucks a car got busted, and I wish it wouldn't have happened, but I offered them up and knew the risk, and accidents happen, so it is what it is. Didn't change my good mood one bit. We put the cars back on the track, and while I'm thinking it's useless and time to make alternate plans, we try again. This time, the spoon is obviously hurt. The fendered cars performed about the same, and the yet again dropped (and no graphite added in three years) old car, in a slow lane, is still fastest.

By this time, the race is 30-40 minutes late to start, the place is full, and it's agreed that plan B is needed. The food is ready (big taco bar & chili cook off), and has been for 30 minutes, but it was never announced for anyone to eat. And since the SM was trying to get the computer to work, there were no advancement rankings awarded with the blue & gold. So everyone is getting a bit ancy, and the children, are being children. A bit rowdy & loud, but nothing major. We all agree on race format (see part 1), and the ASM proceeds to come up with his "algorithm". During this time, it's announced that it's time to eat, so no more testing. We wait until our table's turn, leave our stuff, then go stand in line. While we're in line, I see a family come up with their food and hover around our seats (they were nowhere around before, and my wife had been sitting there since 5:30 when she arrived). I just lightly elbow the wife, and say "Watch this, I think these people are going to take our seats, lol.". Sure enough, they sit right down, all 4 of them (Mother- who is the boy scout advancement lady, two teenage boys- both in boy scouts with my oldest boy, and a baby. Mistakes happen, no issue (although they sat with my wife's purse and our drinks, directly in front of and in between them). Meh, everybody is different, so I step out of line, walk over and politely say "Excuse me guys, but our family is sitting here, and has been. This is our stuff". They all look up at me and give me a blank stare. I step back in line, as it's our turn. I look over, and they didn't move an inch, lol. I just smh, and chuckle at the wife. We get our food, and head back to our seats. I walk up and say "Hey guys, this is where we were sitting. That purse is my wife's purse, and those are our drinks, and that is her coat that you're pretty much sitting on. It's all been right here, along with us, since 5:30.". Again I get a blank stare from her boys, but the Mom's giving me the stink-eye this time. Her boys look back at her, and after about 20 seconds of her staring me down, she grunts, and motions for her boys to scoot down. They make the room, and we sit right next to them, in our seats. My wife was looking at me like "with is this ladies problem?", but no words were said. That pretty much was a sign of how the night was going to go.

At 7:15, the SM decided to handout the blue & gold awards. It went pretty quick, and the race was finally set to start. The race helping Dad's were dolled out their positions, and I was the finish line video guy. My oldest boy was a car returner for the entirety of the event, so he was down by the finish line with me (but sitting at a table at a safe waiting/watching distance). The wife/our seats were at the finish line as well, and she was on the opposite side of track of my oldest boy, watching/holding onto my youngest boy).

The race starts, and almost instantly the atmosphere changes. Our friend/scout who beat us & won the very first heat is at the finish line, with his mom, and gets excited and turns to his mom and celebrates with a jump & high 5. The lady who tried to take our seats is sitting there and loudly yells for him to "Sit down!". The scout's mom looks over at her and says "Excuse me? I'm his Mom, and I'm right here!" The scout looks back at his Mom, tucks up by her leg, and says "Mom, can I just go back over and get something more eat?" The classless woman yells at the boy again, pointing at him and saying "No, I said sit down!". The scout's Mom turns away, shakes her head, and they go back to the food. This was tense but it passed and we moved on. The only people aware that it happened, was those of us down towards the finish line (as it was very loud in there by this time). There's tape on the floor, marking where/how close the Scouts/children can be to the track. After a couple of races, it's obvious that some of these kids are paying no attention to the tape (or the mom with a sick scout who couldn't attend, so she had a tripod and was video taping the race for him) who was right behind me to the side. I turn around and say "Alright kids, gotta scoot back a little bit. Gotta behind be the tape". This goes on every heat for the first few. I'm starting to get louder each time, saying pretty much the same thing, but they simply are not listening. There are also a few kiddie pools full of mulch along the back wall (about 10' behind the finish line) for some kindergartner project. After a repeated time of telling to back up, I look and see a few kids doing full body rolls in the mulch pools. I look around, along with a couple others (including my wife), and we see none of these kids parents around. One of the parents gets them out of the mulch, and we move on. A few more heats, and now we have plastic flag sword fights going down at the parentless end of the room. That along with the constant track encroachment and loudness abound. We get that sorted out (after multiple attempts at being nice, the wife is getting loud and telling some of these kids to go be with their parents, at the other end of the room). They finally pull back a bit on being too close, after I about get knocked over, and turn around and decently loudly yell "Get behind the line!". Oddly enough, with about every bit of it, the same boy is involved. Finally he goes.......somewhere else. Meh, whatever, back to racing.

A couple of heats later, the race starter starts having to stop, and pick stuff up off of the track that he's seeing from the starting line. After a couple of times in a short period, I see it's that same kid, pulling the boundary tape off of the floor, balling it up in little balls, and throwing it on the track, about mid-track, smiling the whole time. Errrr...this kid is a real pain, and his mother is still nowhere around him. The starter Dad sees him doing too, and he points and firmly tells him from across the track to stop. Moving on.....A couple more heats get ran, then I see a little piece of tape on the track a few few out in front of me. I put up the "hold on" sign, and go pick it off. It wasn't a ball, just a stray little piece, so I think, no biggie, it just flew up there with traffic or something. Nope, next race I see a ball of tape get thrown on the track right where I just came from...by the same kid! This time I walk over, pick up the tape, and I aggressively say "Stop throwing tape and get back away from the track kid! I'm tired of telling you. Go find your parents!". He backs up, but gives me a very [crummy] look, lol. I'm still keeping my cool, but man, this is a lot to deal with in a short period of time. The SM is up at the front of the room, doing whatever it was he had going on up there, so he wasn't aware what all had been going down on the other end of the room, and neither did the majority of the kids parents, who were all coffee-clatching, paying zero attention to any of their kids.

Finally, we get the race completed....

As the ASM tallies up the totals and they plan/figure out trophy assignment (only one trophy per scout, so in the case two or more are won, the scout gets the most prestigious trophy, then the other trophies are assigned to other scouts, in order), the SM announces "The track is open for sibling/friend/open racing!" The kids swarm to their cars, and then swarm to the track. The SM disappears over with the ASM, and that leaves me, and and one other Dad to oversee the track. By this time, most all of the neglectant parents were well into themselves, and continued to pay no attention at all to their kids, while hurled up in one front corner of the room. This is where it really went sideways.....

As the open racing commences, the other Dad continues the car starting position, and I become the car returner, for the kids that didn't bother to retrieve their own. Each time I walk up & down the track, I have to tell the kids to get back, even more-so now, since they were standing in line, track-side (no tape buffer zone). The line extended to about 1/2 the length of the track. Still no big issue, just getting very tired of saying the same things, over & over, hour after hour, with no comprehension from the kids. During this time, my boy came up to me, and asked permission to race his car with/against a good buddy of his. I say "No problem, it's your car, just be careful with it, since it's got another race to be in (district)." Open racing continues. On one of my last trips up to return cars, I can't even barely make it to the car table (behind the starting line, against the front wall) due to all of kids swarming the starting line. I get up there, and see my buddy is having issues with the starting gate again. He's bent down looking at the underside of the gate workings, and as I lean over the top to see if he needs any help, it's like I'm at a back alley [censored] fight, with bets being taken at the last minute, only it was kids arms, like 10 of them, all trying to sit/get their cars on the track before the other kids can! The place is very very loud at this point, and I can't even move, in fear that if I turn around or move my arms too fast, I'm gonna end up elbowing some kid to the face. I let out a loud "Get Back!", to zero effect. So I say it again, but even louder this time, still to no effect. I belt a very very loud "GET BACK FROM THE TRACK, NOW!", and finally, they take notice (along with most others in the room), and step back. My buddy gets it figured out, and back to racing we go.

We get a few more runs in, and on my way back down to the end of the track, about half track, I turn around, just sweeping the area to make sure the kids were staying off of the track, as I was doing every trip. That's when I see a arm/hand swing down from the waiting line, and see a block car get sat right in lane 1, about 2' in front of the flat transition. This is where it kind-of turned into a movie for me, as everything slowed way down, and was just "different".....I go to take steps to reach for the car in the way, and I look up to see that there are 4 dark colored cars already on the track and ready for release. I no more than get one knee in the air, and I see the cars head down the ramp........sure enough almost instantaneously.....SMACK!!, and I see a car and parts go flying from the track! The very next thing that I see, is the same arm lean down to pick up the car that was just placed there. I follow the arm up, and I see the smiling face a kid....not just any kid, the same loud, sword fighting, tape throwing, non listening, never staying away from the track kid that had been causing problems all night, with still no parent anywhere around.

At this time, I had not looked down agin, or any further at the cars that were running on that race, or the car that had been thrown from the track, after plowing full speed into this kids car. I just know that this kid finally crossed the line and now it had affected another scout and his car. I'm pretty fuming as I make eye contact with this kid, and I yell "GOD! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN TOLD TO STAY AWAY FROM THE TRACK TONIGHT??" (keep in mind, that this boy had no scout stuff on of any sort, and I'd never really remembered even seen him before today).

That's when I turn my eyes from him, and look down for the thrown car. That's when I see that it's my sons Webelo car, that had just won the event. I was RED!, but still managed to keep a level head (IMO). I pick up the car (and it's wheel and axle up off of the floor), I look back at the kid, lean over the track, point directly down at the top of the head of this boy and shut the place down with a very loud yell of "WHO ARE THE PARENTS OF THIS CHILD??". The place goes quiet enough to hear a pin drop. As I'm looking around for an answer, I hear "His Mom is over there" (which oddly enough was the finish line area. smh), and the boy runs off to Mom. I see the Mom, just as my wife, who was unknowingly somewhat beside her, yells out "What happened??" I look at her with the car in hand and parts in the other. I hold it up for her to see, and say "Jesse's district car is busted!!". That's also when I see my boy, who was waiting at the finish line for his car, see me holding his car, then "breathe up", and make a b-line for the exit door.

Only him and I could understand what he was feeling, as we both knew that HE had invested 30+ hours in his build, over a span of 4 months. This was to be his "pinnacle" car and his best shot at a district title. He poured 5 years of learning into that car, and now it was junk, and if he wanted to compete at the next level, he would have to invest 30 more hours building another car. All of this is sinking in with both if us, in a matter of seconds. I felt crushed for my boy, flat out crushed.

I have the car in hand, and I sit down at mid track, on one of the table benches. I'm sitting there mad, but at the same time, I'm realizing that I filtered out any/all bad words, and feeling that I handled it pretty well, all thing considered. That's when over my shoulder (front corner of the room) I see the SM getting yelled at by some guy. Meh, what a surprise I'm thinking, what a fubar night. The SM passes by me, and walks around the table to where this guy was standing. A moment or two later, the SM passes back by me, and squats down to me. He says "I'm real sorry that this happened, but I have some parents telling me that they heard you make threats to that boys life..." I look at him and say "lol, what? You're joking, right?" He says "Sorry, but not joking. We will get the trophies passed out, then maybe when everyone is happier, we can address this." Then he walks away.

As I'm sitting there, it dawns on me that that must've been the guy yelling at the SM right after it happened. So only after a minute or two had passed, I thought it would be best to try & straighten this out, I mean it had to be a simple mis-understanding, right? I walk around the table to where this Dad and his wife were. I calmly and politely walk up and ask "So who over hear, thinks they heard me make a threat to a child's life?" The guy immediately turns his back to me, and his wife gets up in my face with "You better go away!". I respond with "I would just like to know what it was thought that I said.". Again, "Go away, cool off!" "I'm not hot, or offensive ma'am, I would just like to know what I'm accused of saying, but neither of you will tell/talk to me, so we can get this straightened out". "GO AWAY UNLESS YOU WANT THIS GET PHYSICAL!" "But....", "I SAID GO AWAY NOW OR THIS GETS PHYSICAL!" I stop talking, then her and her husband walk away toward the end of the track.

As I'm left standing there, a couple minutes pass, then the ASM walks up to me and we chat for a minute. I tell him what I said, word for word, and he says "yeah, he seems to be the only one that heard it, as we can't find any other witnesses that heard anything like that". I say and laugh, "That's because I didn't say anything of the sort. I don't have any idea what he thought he heard." He replies with "He says that you said "I'm gonna kill this little SOB!" My jaw drops, as I can't even fathom how he could've construed anything I said, into that. Then he says "Well, right now we might have a bigger problem".....

When the guy and wife left where we were standing, they walked down to the problem kid's Mom and a group of other people, and proceeded to tell her/them what he "heard" me say, to that "poor little boy". My wife was close enough to the convo that she hopped up as soon as she heard what I was accused of saying. She then calmly walks over to the boy's Mom, who was sitting, and says "I can guarantee you that my husband would never, ever, say something like that to a child, it's not who he is." The Mom spouts back with a cocky "Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to believe!" Due to the Moms very stand-offish attitude, some words were then said by my wife, about the lack of the mothers parenting throughout the entire night. The Mom wanted no part of hearing the truth, as she stood up and got right in my wife face with a " you wanna fight about it?" attitude. My wife is the more adult of the two, and she walks away.

By this time, it was time for trophy presentation. While it was going on and we were all watching (wife & I still apart and had not talked), I was getting a little info coming to me about who exactly these people were. While we're talking, I get a nice elderly lady who was sitting right there when it happened, and another guy who was sitting right there, come up to me (a few minutes apart from each other), and tell me that they heard nothing wrong, no threats, no cussing, and that they thought that I handled the situation very well, even "better than I would have!"

At some point, my son had gathered himself (was crying in the back of our van in the parking lot) and came back into the cafeteria. When my wife saw him enter, she re-appraoched the kid's Mom, and said "All adult stuff aside, my son is back in here, and it would be a good time for your son to apologize to him, if he's going to". The Mom looks down at her boy and tells him to "Go somewhere else." My wife did not take kindly to that at all....

Right about that time, the district rep that was at the race, walked up to the commotion. Just in time to hear my wife call the Mom "White trash" and tells her "Go to Hell!", right before she turns and walks away. Apparently the district rep was oblivious to everything else that happened that night, leading up to that point, and was mad only at my wife for her behavior/words of choice. I can't defend my wife's choice of words to use, but they were true words, and a drop in the bucket IMO compared to what had been on display all night, that we had to deal with.

Turns out that the Dad who "heard" me say this, and his wife, are the daughter and son-in-law of the woman who tried to steal our seats! lol. Wow, now at least it starts making some sort of sense....just a trash family. About this time, my youngest gets awarded his 3rd place overall trophy, and he was gleaming. He's right beside me, and walks up to get his trophy, comes back and we high-five. When they get to the final trophy, and call my oldest boy's name, he was not around, as he had went back to the other side of the cafeteria that was walled off, after the apology deal (had just happened). Instead, the wife walks up and gets his trophy, his car, and then she looks over and gives me the "let' go, we're outa here" look.

We gather our stuff and out the door we went.

That was our pack pwd.

Thoughts/Opinions? Am I the worlds biggest [censored], followed by my wife? How would you have handled a night like this?

WOW. I am speechless. Sorry for the horrible night. I hate it when people who do not know the entire story jump into something and make the mess even bigger. I am sure my wife would have done the same thing. So would I.

Thinking about it a little more, I think the only thing that might have helped is if you would have stopped the racing earlier and called the kid out when he was throwing the stuff on the track. Then I would have likely shut down the open racing as soon as they would not stay in line. Sounds like you tried to do this, but were sorely undergunned by then.

I was involved with a Pack where this type behavior was considered normal. Strangely enough, the Pack leader is a great guy and helps me every year in our workshops. When we acquired our new track we learned it was loaned to this Pack each year. I store the track for our Pack and our leaders agreed to continue helping the other Pack. The 1st year I set up the track all kinds of nonsense started. I stopped the race and got the leaders together. I explained to them the behavior was not acceptable, I would not allow our track to be damaged, and if the behavior continued the track would not return the next year. I haven't had a problem since. The Pack Leader needs to set the rules.

soccerdad wrote:Thinking about it a little more, I think the only thing that might have helped is if you would have stopped the racing earlier and called the kid out when he was throwing the stuff on the track. Then I would have likely shut down the open racing as soon as they would not stay in line. Sounds like you tried to do this, but were sorely undergunned by then.

I agree and told the SM such during our meeting. One of his main issues though, is that I "called out" and "embarrassed" this boy, "in front of everyone". He thinks that was unnecessary and uncalled for.

Speedster wrote:I was involved with a Pack where this type behavior was considered normal. Strangely enough, the Pack leader is a great guy and helps me every year in our workshops. When we acquired our new track we learned it was loaned to this Pack each year. I store the track for our Pack and our leaders agreed to continue helping the other Pack. The 1st year I set up the track all kinds of nonsense started. I stopped the race and got the leaders together. I explained to them the behavior was not acceptable, I would not allow our track to be damaged, and if the behavior continued the track would not return the next year. I haven't had a problem since. The Pack Leader needs to set the rules.

Our SM is a very nice/likable guy as well. But I don't agree with some his thoughts/opinions. He does agree, that he should've been in much more control of the event.